I Might Just Be Convinced That This Scrapbooking Thing Is Like Crack

Thanks to Mike Sharman, I was invited to visit his sister’s scrapbooking studio in Dunvegan on Wednesday night for a demo/scrapbooking crash course. Bribed with promises of wine, girl-talk and looking through (and shrieking with laughter) at old photographs, I headed to the Scrapbook Den, a wee bit apprehensive, I won’t lie.

Now, I consider myself a creative person, and have always made my own cards and gifts and love wrapping presents and adore buying stationery as much as the next girl – but this place was totally overwhelming when it came to variety, and choice of papers, ribbons, buttons, stickers, glues, tapes, knives and all sorts of other little fiddly bits that a girl who has the slightest tendency to collect/use/buy/hoard pretty things will totally go mental over. I had no idea how to use all of it, and it was all so gorgeous I could hardly bear to bring a pair of scissors near it.

This is just ONE of the rows of papers in this place! Unfortunately I’m having total issues with my camera and my MacBook and there just NOT being any USB magic happening between the two, so you’ll have to go look at Angel’s blog for more pictures of this gorgeous, colourful scrapbooking studio, and you’ll have to make do with my BlackBerry snaps, for now.

Jeannette, our hostess (and shopowner) gave us a tour of all the prettiness, we drank some wine and got down to the serious business of scrapbooking. Before this, I was a total scrapbooking virgin, but a few tips from the pro, and I was very pleased that what I started with….this:

….turned out like this:

So you really don’t have to have any kind of scrapbooking experience at all, to do this thing apparently. For those of you that are keen, there are classes and childrens parties. For those of you that don’t have time, you can shop in their online store and buy your individual bits and pieces, or you can buy complete kits as well.

As my creation is all pictures of The Boyfriend’s parents – while they were dating, from when they were kids, and a picture from their wedding – I decided to frame it and give it to The BF’s mom as a thank you present. Hopefully she’ll love it.

Now I never thought I’d be one for scrapbooking (even the name to me sounds a bit paff) – but as the kind of person who has boxes and boxes of photographs, and GBs of photos on my computer – I can definitely see the value in making something awesome with a few of your special photos – and I can definitely see the value in making an album for my Kid – much like Angel has been doing over the years for her Damien. To remember the important things – the celebrations and the achievements and to look back on how you and your child have grown, together.

The fact that the Scrapbook Den is rather close to my neck of the woods – and the fact that I currently have NO photos on the walls since we’ve re-painted the inside of our house – means that I might just be spending a fair amount of time there soon. Like I said – this hobby is like crack. As if I needed another excuse – I also did once-upon-a-time promise my mother I’d put together a rocking photo-album of all her wedding pics.

Yup. Scrapbooking. The transformation into a too-much-time-on-her-hands housewife is now complete.